Staff Nurse Eileen Lilian McNAMARA, c.1890 – ?

Service location – Eileen was to have been sent to Salonika. She embarked on the Wyreema on 14 October 1918 with other nurses one of whom was her sister, Staff Nurse Kathleen McNamara. The Wyreema was recalled at sea due to the end of hostilities on the Salonika front. Some of the women from this ship nursed casualties from the influenza epidemic at the Fremantle Quarantine Station at Woodman’s Point (see Veiled Lives below in references.)

Medals – British War Medal

The Newcastle Morning Herald, 2 October 1919 carried the following item:

“War Nurses Entertained”

On Saturday afternoon the five nurses who trained at Maitland were entertained by Oakhampton Comforts Fund. Each nurse was presented with handsome gold brooches. Guests were Mrs Danson, Sisters M Mears, Eileen and Kathleen M’Namara & [Kathleen] Thomas. Apologies from Srs Cann, Feneley, M.Wood and E.Mears. Mrs Danson, the wife of Rev Dr Danson Bishop of Borneo “will be remembered as the very popular nurse Sister Harvey. In the evening the five nurses were guests of the Returned Soldiers’ League and Soldiers Club Ladies Committee at West Maitland Soldiers Club.

References:

National Archives of Australia B2455 MCNAMARA E

Embarkation Roll of the First AIF Australian War Memorial Nurses (July 1915 – November 1918)

Newcastle Morning Herald, 2 October 1919

Esme Meehan, Maitland Hospital, the way we were, the author, Largs NSW, 1996

Ruth Rae, Veiled Lives: threading Australian nursing history into the fabric of the First World War, The College of Nursing, Burwood NSW, 2009